The Human Condition
by goodgonegirl42
Summary: Set after the Reichenbach Fall. Sherlock is injured and Molly is doing her best to piece him back together without breaking her heart.
1. Falling

**This is my first attempt at writing fan fiction, but I've been completely swept away with this pairing and felt like I had to contribute to the wonderful Sherlolly movement. I think they complement each other very well, and Molly has an ability to ground him and bring out his humanity.  
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** I know there are a lot of speculations about how Sherlock survived. In this story he jumps and hits the ground. No rubbish truck or doubles. I did some research and it is actually very possible to survive such a fall. My guess is that Sherlock used something to soften the impact with the ground, but he did not divulge into such detail with Molly. There's something about him knowing that he might not survive the fall and still jumping that intrigues me very much. That is the moment Sherlock Holmes becomes a good man.**

**I've always thought nursing someone to health can be very intimate. The lines between everyday propriety blur and people get to know each other on a completely different level. **

**I do hope you enjoy, and will be kind enough to leave your impressions.**

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><p>It was a little past noon on a regular cloudy Thursday. Molly Hooper sat on the lab stool, clutching a Styrofoam cup of room temperature coffee in her shaking hands and replaying the events of the previous night in her head. Sherlock confiding in her, telling her she mattered, asking for her help. She had been hopelessly in love with the man ever since she first laid eyes on him and had frequently fantasized about him showing any kind of regard for her. But as he stood before her in the dimly lit lab, his expression determined and eyes almost pleading, she felt sick.<p>

Sherlock Holmes never asked anyone for help, let alone her. It could only mean that things were really bad and she had felt her insides grow cold with fear. She had agreed to do whatever he needed her to do and they had settled at the very same lab table she occupied right now to talk it over.

She had been terrified when he relayed his plan to her, he intended to jump from the roof of the hospital and he needed her to arrange for him to be transported to the mortuary after his fall. There she was supposed to give him first aid and falsify the documentation, sending a different body to be cremated in his place. She had shaken her head forcefully, nerves getting the best of her, as she attempted to object. True, she had been to medical school, and knew all of the procedures in theory, but she had had a very limited experience and had not had any practice for years. What if he had an internal bleeding, severe bone fractures or anything at all that required surgery? If he somehow miraculously survived the fall, she could not have him die because of her incompetence.

He had silenced her nervous tirade with a stern "Molly." And a reminder that she had agreed to do whatever he asked of her. She had fallen silent after that, avoiding his eyes and worrying the buttons of her cardigan. And he must have sensed she was near her breaking point, because he had reached across the table for her and squeezed her forearm in reassurance. Surprised, she had looked up at him, her eyes wide and lips parted in astonishment. Sherlock Holmes didn't do comforting.

"I trust you, Molly" He said quietly, making sure to catch her eyes and gave a slight nod with his head as if in confirmation.

The following few hours were spent organizing the medical equipment and supplies in the back corner of one of the lesser used examination rooms in the morgue. A few trips to the upper levels of the hospital and a couple favors later, Molly had everything ready. She had covered it all behind a screen for a good measure, to ensure that no curious attendant stumbled across it in her absence, even though that part of the mortuary usually remained deserted.

At two fifteen, Molly had finally locked up.

"I'll see you tomorrow then" She had turned to him, her voice weak.

"Yes" he had nodded, not looking at her and she had taken it as her cue to be dismissed. It seemed like he had reached his limit of pleasantries for the day.

She had gone home, taken a scolding shower and spent the rest of the night curled on her sofa, going through the medical encyclopedias that lined the wall in her living room to freshen up her knowledge.

The dark liquid sloshed about the edges of the cup lazily as she twirled it between her fingers. With a frustrated sigh she got up, drained the now cold coffee into the sink and threw the cup into a rubbish bin nearby, making her way to the other side of the room, where Sherlock and John were engaged in an argument. Or rather, Sherlock sat leaning back in his chair, looking bored while John yelled at him for lord knew what. She stopped midway and looked at the scene before her, listening. Mrs. Hudson was attacked? She glanced at Sherlock. His expression did not convey the slightest bit of worry as he snapped replies at the doctor in an almost rehearsed manner. But John didn't seem to pick up on it, and with a final yell of "Friends protect people" darted out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

She had watched Sherlock on many occasions, cataloging his features, expressions and looks in her head. And as she watched his face, while his eyes followed John out of the room, she committed another one to her memory. It was farewell, and suddenly Molly knew that John would find Mrs. Hudson in perfect health when he reached Baker Street. It also meant that it was time. Her breath hitched in her throat when she heard his text alert go off and he glanced down at the screen for a fleeting moment, before pocketing the device and reaching for his coat.

She wanted to run to him, wrap her arms around him and beg him not to go. But as it was, she stood there with her fists clenched tightly in the pockets of her white coat and followed his motions with a glassy stare as he tied his trademark blue scarf around his neck and fixed the collar of his coat.

He looked up at her, meeting her eyes and giving her a slight nod before leaving the room. For a moment, she stood there, overwhelmed as the weight of what was about to happen suddenly dawned on her. He was walking to his death. And even if, by some miracle, she was able to piece him back together after his fall, he was still going to be dead to the world come morning. But she wouldn't let him die. He had put his trust in her and she would not betray it even if it was the last thing she did.

Snapping out of her stupor, Molly dashed into the back room to make sure everything was in place. She could not afford to lose any time at all after she would get him there. Satisfied with the state of things, she gave the room one last sweeping glance before hastily making her way out of the mortuary.

She stood by the main entrance, waiting. And a few minutes later noticed people start to glance upwards as something caught their eye. But she could not look. Instead, she eyed the two surgical interns she had talked into this with promises of access to certain bodies for practice. They stood a short distance away from her, inside the hospital doors trying to act nonchalant and waiting for their cue to act.

She heard gasps and a woman scream, and looked away from them just in time to see a black blur collide with the pavement a few feet away from her with a sickening thump. She had been terrified of this moment most of all, afraid that she might just freeze and fail to remember any of what they had planned. But as a small group of people started to gather around his body, hers reeled into action. She signaled for the interns to get moving and with a few long strides was at his side, kneeling beside him and turning him over. She checked for pulse and almost let out a sob as she felt the faint beeps of pressure against her fingertips.

His eyes were open; crystal blue against the crimson of blood that continued to ooze from his head injury. She noted with relief that the size of the red puddle around them was getting larger due to the rain and not the amount of blood he was losing. Moving a hand over his eyelids, she slid them shut.

"Sherlock" She heard a familiar voice cry, and moved away from his side hastily so John could not see her. Sherlock had given her specific instructions about John. He needed to think Sherlock was dead. She had protested at first, but he had insisted it was the only option. He was doing this for his safety, as well as detective inspector Lestrade's and Mrs. Hudson's.

She felt a pang for John as he fought his way through the crowd and grabbed Sherlock's wrist to feel for the pulse. She saw him falter and his face become ever more ashen as people tried to steer him away from Sherlock's body so the latter could be transported onto the carrier.

Her heart plummeted to her stomach. He hadn't found a pulse. She felt fear grip her insides. No, she had definitely felt it. It was weak, but it had been there. He must have missed it in his state of shock.

However all thoughts of John Watson and the rest of the world fled her mind as she ran after the interns into the hospital, her coat and knees stained with mud and blood.

Once in the mortuary, she had them move him onto the table she had prepared.

"You can go now" she told them, her hands already moving to remove his scarf, coat, and jacket, checking for his vitals.

They hesitated for a moment. "Are you sure you don't need help?" one of them asked.

"Leave!" She yelled over her shoulder as she pulled an oxygen mask over Sherlock's face. And looking uneasy, the two men left the room, closing the door behind them.

She checked his head wound first. It would need quite a few stitches, and he would probably have a bad concussion, but it was not deep enough to cause any permanent brain damage. She stopped the bleeding for the time being and proceeded to open his shirt and check his chest and abdomen for any signs of an internal bleeding. She found none, but the bruising on the right side of his ribcage, which was becoming darker by the minute, told her he probably had a few fractured ribs.

She checked his pulse again. It had grown stronger and steadier. She sighed, relieved that there was no immediate danger to his life and proceeded to scan his body for broken bones with a portable x-ray unit she had nicked from radiology the night before.

He had a dislocated shoulder and a fracture in his right ulna. But those were minor injuries considering his fall. Somewhat more relaxed, she moved to his feet, taking his shoes and socks off. His left ankle was beginning to swell, but it was not broken. She put a cold compress on it, securing it with a bandage, before returning to his shoulder. It would be better to fix it while he was still unconscious to save him the pain, but she would have to take care of his arm first to avoid making more damage.

She rolled his sleeve as far as it would go and bandaged his arm, securing it tightly and then, being careful to hold his arm above his elbow, put his shoulder back in its socket with a loud crack.

Next, she filled a jar with lukewarm water and with gentle strokes washed the blood and rain water from his face and hair, lifting the edges of his oxygen mask.

She did 15 stitches on his head, taking care to make each one neat and even, and wrapped a bandage over it once she was done.

Gently, she eased a pillow under his head, and another one under his swollen ankle, before covering him with a blanket. She needed to keep him warm and the mortuary was chilly as ever.

Four hours later, she sank onto the stool beside his bed. Her entire body strung like a wire, her spine and shoulders aching from the tension and her heartbeat ringing in her temples.

She did all she could for now and as she trained her eyes on his chest, rising and falling steadily, she felt the adrenaline seep out of her system, leaving her shaking with relief. She let out a sob and unable to hold back the tears, buried her face in her hands.

He was alive. Bruised and battered, but alive nonetheless. She shrugged her blood-stained coat off and wiped her face dry with the backs of her hands, before taking his left arm in hers gingerly and placing a delicate kiss on his knuckles.

He was alive, but they still had to convince the rest of the world otherwise. Taking a deep breath, she got up and looking him over him one last time, left the room to get the paperwork done before he woke up.


	2. Aching

**Because you've been so lovely and because I've been hopelessly stuck on my English paper for hours, here's chapter two. **

**I realize trusting the interns with such a job might have been sketchy, but for the sake of the story, let's assume that they will not blab about Molly's favor and will be convinced that he eventually died in the mortuary. I was tempted to include Mycroft's men for the task, because I think he was involved in the staging of Sherlock's suicide in the series. But I didn't want him in the story, hence the sketchy interns. Bear with it.**

**I'll do my best to keep both Molly and Sherlock in character for the most part, but I want my Molly to show the stronger side of her, that is usually suppressed whenever the gorgeous sleuth is around. After all, you can't spend your days elbow deep in dead bodies without having quite a bit of a backbone. I intend to find that backbone and stick it into dear Mr. Holmes. No pun intended.**

**Please do enjoy, and let me know your thoughts on this chapter!**

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><p>The first thing he felt was pain. His head was pounding, his shoulder aching. His skin felt tight, and every rise of his chest was rewarded with a pang in his right side. Even his eyes hurt, irritated by the fluorescent lighting of the room.<p>

He made an attempt to move his right hand but decided against it as the sensation of a hundred tiny needles piercing his flesh made his breath hitch. His left hand, he observed, was in a better condition. His fingers brushed something soft and warm as he reached to remove the oxygen mask.

Leaning on the elbow of his good hand, he propped himself up, groaning as the action caused a cacophony of pain in his body. The noise seemed to wake up Molly, whose head had been resting on her folded arms, on the left side of the surgical table that she had made into a make-shift bed.

Her head shot up with a sharp intake of air, and her startled expression broke out into a brilliant smile as she spotted him awake.

"Sherlock!" She exclaimed breathlessly, jumping off her stool, and he winced as the sound rang loudly in his ears. "You should lie back down" she instructed in a quieter tone, still smiling.

"What time is it?" He asked, taking a careful breath, but obliged, resting his head on the pillow again.

She looked at her wrist "A little past ten"

"Did you have any problems?" He inquired.

"No" she shook her head, sitting back down.

Lestrade had come sometime after she had finished tending to Sherlock's injuries and found her in the lab, filling the paperwork. He had looked stricken and had inquired about the results of Sherlock's autopsy. After she'd told him that she had discovered nothing out of ordinary, he had hesitated a little, because he didn't actually have access and because he wasn't sure whether he really wanted to, but asked her to see the body.

She had panicked for a moment, trying to come up with a plausible explanation for her refusal, but her exhausted body and wire-strung emotions had come to her aid and she had burst into tears. He had hugged her, let her cry into his chest and had not repeated his request again.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, biting her lip.

"I have been better" He winced, fidgeting and trying to find a more comfortable position.

"I got you some painkillers, but they will most likely knock you out and I think we should get you out of here as soon as possible" She said in a small voice, avoiding his eyes.

He looked at her and for a moment the pain became a background noise as he suddenly felt himself filling with gratitude for the mousy, pale woman that had saved his life but couldn't pluck up the courage to look him in the eyes.

He supposed he ought to express his gratitude somehow and was trying to decide on phrasing when she spoke up again.

"What's the plan now?"

"I'll just have to lay low for a while"

"But you're too injured to go into hiding" she looked up at him, alarmed.

He couldn't disagree with that, seeing as he had found even leaning on his elbow to be challenging at the moment, so he settled for a non-committal grunt.

"You can stay at my place for a while" her cheeks flushed as she rushed through the sentence "I mean-"

"Thank you" he cut her off, not wanting to hear her ramble, and because he had planned to ask that favor of her, had she not brought it up herself.

"What?"

"I said thank you, Molly. That would be very gracious of you" He told her, the corners of his lips turning up into a faint smile.

"Right" she sighed and jumped up as he made another attempt to seat up. This time, instead of chiding him to lie back down, she wrapped her right hand around his back and took a hold of his wrist with her left, helping him into a sitting position.

He took a minute to let his head stop spinning and reached for the blanket. She helped him discard of it and he winced as he swung his left leg off the edge of the table.

She loosened her hold on him and made sure he was steady before kneeling to inspect his ankle. The swelling had gone down a little, but he would still have trouble walking.

"We need to go now" he told her, breathing rather heavily and she only nodded.

She got up and retrieved his socks and shoes before resuming her position. She hesitated. It had seemed easier and less intimate when he was unconscious. Blushing, she took hold of his right foot and pulled the sock on, then repeated the action on his left, but with more care.

Sherlock, on his part, had flushed as well. He would have ordered her to stop, but he was well aware that he would not be able to accomplish the task without her help.

She put his right shoe on and laced it up before stopping short. He wouldn't be able to step on his left foot anyway, and the sturdy leather of his designer shoes would be very painful against his tender ankle.

She looked up at him, her brow wrinkled. "Sherlock?"

"Yes, Molly?"

"This... This will hurt" he made no reply, so she continued "You won't be able to step on it anyway, so maybe I should, uh, leave it?"

He seemed to consider it for a moment, wincing as he tried to move his foot.

"Yes, I suppose you should" he finally nodded and she sighed before getting up.

She was glad that she had saved herself more embarrassment by fixing his shirt while he was still unconscious. She brought him his jacket and gingerly put his right hand through the sleeve before holding it so he could loop his left arm through the second. They repeated the action with his coat.

His scarf and the collar of his coat had had a few blood stains when she had taken them off him earlier, but she had washed them off when she had finished with his paperwork and was desperate for something to keep her busy. They would still need proper cleaning, but at least she had gotten her hands on them in time to prevent the blood stains from becoming permanent. His shirt, however, had not been so fortunate.

With shaking hands she wrapped the scarf around his neck, standing at an arm's length from him, avoiding looking at his face.

She then proceeded to gather her belongings and dispose of any objects that did not belong in a mortuary. Having pulled her own coat on and tucked his left shoe inside her oversized handbag, she stood before him.

"Ready?" She asked. He nodded.

She swung her bag over her left shoulder and wrapped her right hand around his waist. He put his left arm around her neck and she reached hers up to get a hold of his wrist. He eased down from the table on his right foot and she gave him a moment to adjust. Leaning on her, he made an awkward jump with his right foot which was met with a wave of pain on his side and an anxious glance on hers.

One tiny, painful step at a time, they made their way through the back door of the mortuary and down the dark alley leading to the street. There she hailed a cab and they somehow settled into it. She gave the driver directions to her apartment and resorted to anxiously glancing at Sherlock every two minutes or so. Sherlock tried to concentrate on anything other than the pounding in his scalp and the throbbing in his joints. He closed his eyes, taking deep even breaths and occasionally licked his broken lip. He had been biting down on it to keep the grunts and moans at bay and had drawn blood by the time they managed to settle into the taxi.

The trip from the cab and up the two flights of stairs to her apartment had left him breathless and gasping in pain.

"Just a little longer" she tried to reassure him, her own voice shaking as she fished her keys out of her coat pocket and stumbled to get them inside the lock with her left hand.

Once inside, she dropped her bag on the floor, and led him in the direction of her bedroom.

"I have to change the sheets" she realized and blushing, made a move to sit him down on a nearby chair, but he grasped her shoulder, shaking his head.

"I don't mind" he managed, breathing heavily. She nodded, realizing he must be in an enormous amount of pain.

She pulled the comforter off the bed and swiftly took off his coat before sitting him down on the edge. She untied his scarf and hastily removed his shoe, socks and the jacket.

His left hand reached up and started fumbling with the buttons on his shirt and her cheeks colored crimson as she helped him undo them and tugged the shirt off him, trying to be careful with his right shoulder.

"I'll have to bandage it up" she told him and he nodded vaguely, before reaching for his belt.

His skin felt tender and tight and he could not wait to get the stifling layers of clothing off. She took a deep breath. This was not the time to reduce into a blushing, blabbering mess of a woman. He was hurt and he needed her help. She had to be professional.

Sighing, she pulled his fumbling fingers away and swiftly undid his belt, unbuttoned his pants and pulled the zipper down before tugging them down his legs.

She gasped. Without the clothes covering his injuries up, she could see the full extent of the bruises that ran down the right side of his chest and abdomen, continuing down his thigh and the small of his back. They were blue and purple and clashed heavily with his creamy skin.

She did not allow her eyes to settle on his broad shoulders, his sculpted chest, or his muscled thighs, scolding herself for trying to check him out while he was covered in bruises and injuries.

She fluffed up the pillows and gently laid him down, pulling his hurt leg up onto the bed. Covering him with her duvet, she busied herself with organizing his clothes that she had strewn all over the floor in her haste to get him undressed, while his breathing became less labored and he relaxed into her soft pillows.

"Do you need anything?" she asked, after setting his neatly folded clothing onto the chair beside her dresser. His shirt was ruined and would probably have to be thrown away, but she had folded it nonetheless, because it had given her something to do instead of gazing at him like a lost puppy.

"The painkillers you have promised would be nice, thank you" he sighed and opened his eyes.

"Of course" she nodded and darted out of the room to get the pills from her bag and a glass of water.

Somewhat more relaxed, he took the time to inspect her bedroom. It was small and cluttered with photographs and all sorts of sentimental memorabilia. He could see the floral pattern of the wallpaper in the few places where it wasn't covered with furniture or picture frames. It screamed "Molly." Her bed was an adequate size. Not as large as his, back in baker street, but not too small either. With fondness, he noted that it was quite comfortable as well. On both sides of it stood two small bedside tables. The one on the right had a lamp on it and a well worn Jane Austen novel with a bookmark set two thirds through the pages. She must favor the right side of the bed, he noted, and the stronger scent of her shampoo on the pillow next to his only confirmed his suspicions.

A large closet lined the wall to his right and the bed was facing the windows, draped with heavy purple blinds. On the left wall of the room was the door through which they had entered. Next to it stood a chair with his clothing and a low dresser with a tall mirror. True to the overall fashion of the room, it was too cluttered with perfume bottles, jewelry boxes and framed photographs.

The photographs, he noted, were mainly of four people. Molly, two men and a young woman. The features of the men suggested they were related. Their resemblance to Molly, though not as stark, was evident as well. They must be her family. Father and brother, perhaps. The photographs with them looked the most recent, though the three of them only appeared together in a couple and their body language suggested there was some animosity between the two men.

The ones with the young woman had to be at least a decade old. The scenes and surroundings suggested college and the number of pictures depicting various events could only mean that they had been very close, yet he could not find the dark haired woman in any of the more recent photographs.

There was one on the bedside table on his left that looked very much like Molly, except with fuller lips and shorter hair. But it was black and white and had a line creasing on the bottom right corner where it must have been bent and then straightened back out. It must have been her mother.

In the far left corner of the room there was a door that he concluded to be leading to an en-suite bathroom, judging by the pink dressing gown that was peeking out from where it was left slightly ajar.

Overall, the room was much more tasteful than he had expected and once you got over the overwhelming amount of details, it was actually rather cozy.

Molly returned a few minutes later, having taken off her shoes and coat, carrying a glass of cold water in her right hand and two pills in her left.

She hesitated a little, intimidated by how his eyes followed her every step, before setting the glass and the painkillers on the bedside table and sitting on the edge of the bed.

Wordlessly, he rolled onto his left side and propped himself up with his elbow, looking at her expectantly. She just stared at him for a moment, with a look that made something inside him stir uncomfortably. Her eyes shone with affection and adoration and for the first time he found it endearing, rather than annoying.

He was hurting all over and the constant aching in the back of his head was making it difficult to think about anything other than pain. And then there were emotions and feelings that were stirring up inside his bruised chest whenever she looked at him with that devoted stare of hers. Like he was her master and she would jump through a ring of fire if he commanded her to.

"Would you mind?" He finally said, averting his eyes from hers and gesturing towards the pills.

"What?" She jumped slightly, startled "Oh. Oh, of course" She reached for a pill.

Her fingers trembled as she took hold of one and slowly put it up to his waiting lips. They closed around her thumb and forefinger softly and she released the breath she didn't know she was holding.

His lips were warm, even in comparison to her burning fingers, and soft, save for the dry patch of blood where his teeth had broken the delicate skin.

She took the glass and held it to his mouth, tilting it slightly so he could take a drink. She emptied half of the glass and let out a content sigh when he had his fill. Molly set the glass back onto the table next to the remaining pill and looked back at him, this time looking anywhere but his eyes.

He settled back onto the pillows and trained his eyes on the ceiling. When three minutes passed and he didn't say anything, she sighed and got up from the bed.

"Call me if you need anything" she said quietly and turned around to leave when his left hand closed around her wrist.

"Thank you, Molly" he said, catching her eyes.

"You're welcome" she replied quickly, nodding but he still did not let go of her.

"I mean," he struggled for words "for everything, not just the pills" he squeezed her wrist gently hoping it would convey his gratitude better than his awkward words did.

And perhaps she understood, because she covered his fingers with hers and nodded again, giving him a tired smile.

"Good night, Sherlock" she said.

"Good night, Molly" he replied and she quietly padded out of the room, clicking the door shut behind her.

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><p><strong>I will try to update as frequently as I can, but it will most likely be on the weekends, because I've got one too many writing intensive courses this semester and I have an awful lot of writing to do. <strong>


	3. Longing

**Hello, lovely people!**

**I'd like to take a moment to say thank you to _nocturnias_ for pointing out the typo in Mycroft's name. I must have misspelled it in my hurry to get the chapter posted and I always feel extremely embarrassed when I discover such silly mistakes later, so thank you^^ Also, your story is rather amazing and I absolutely love the idea behind the plot. **

**I have struggled with this chapter more than I have done with the previous two and it's gone to places where I originally hadn't planned to take it. It's the longest one yet, and it's where the OOC behavior starts to kick in a little. Also, things get a little steamy towards the second part of the chapter, which I didn't expect to happen this early into the story. I have even considered breaking this one into separate chapters, but then thought against it. **

**I'm rather nervous about how well it all works, because there's nothing quite so morbid as a badly written sex scene. But well, there's nothing I can do about it at this point.**

**As always, I hope you enjoy and leave me feedback, I love reading it.**

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><p>A loud crash and the sound of breaking glass woke Molly up with a start. She had fallen asleep in her clothes, too exhausted to change. She winced as she sat up on the couch. Her neck was stiff and her shoulders aching, but she paid them no mind as she padded to her bedroom.<p>

"Sherlock, are you alright?" She asked sleepily as she nudged the door open. However her drowsiness soon transformed into alarm, when she spotted him on the floor by her dresser, breathing heavily, his face screwed up in a grimace of pain.

"Sherlock!" She gasped and ran over to him, kneeling on the floor beside him.

His elbow was resting on top of the dresser. Perfume bottles were scattered around it and one of the photo frames had fallen off the edge and lay in shards on the floor next to him. He was clutching his right hand close to his chest and she was relieved he hadn't landed on it.

In her panic to make sure he was okay, she forgot to blush as her right hand cupped the side of his face, her eyes scanning him for any new injuries.

"Sherlock" she repeated. She was going to ask if he was hurt, but stopped herself at the last moment. Of course he was hurt. He had jumped off a six story building and had lived to tell the tale.

"I'm fine, Molly" he said, noticing her struggle and winced as he tried to pull himself op on his elbow.

She let go of his face and hooked her hand under his armpit to help him up.

"Did you cut yourself?" She asked, eyeing the broken glass and felt him shake his head above her.

She led him to the bed and helped him sit on the edge of it, ending up right next to him because of their tangled limbs. She took a moment to calm down and let her breathing become normal. Her arm still wrapped around his waist, his – around her shoulders.

"Where were you going?" she finally asked, looking up at him and blushing profoundly as she realized their close proximity. Gingerly, she retrieved her hand and scooted away from him, creating a more socially acceptable distance between them.

He was avoiding her gaze, looking at the opposite side of the room, his jaw clenched tight. Her brow furrowed, worry etching on her creased forehead.

"Sherlock" she said again, resting her fingers on his stiff forearm, urging him to look at her.

"I needed to use the bathroom" he finally bit out, still refusing to look at her.

A laugh bubbled in her chest and unable to hold it in, she burst into giggles. His head snapped in her direction. He was frowning and she could just make out the faintest hint of a blush on those regal cheekbones. Perhaps it was due to the pent up stress of the past twenty-four hours, but it made her laugh even harder.

He snatched his arm away from her indignantly, but said nothing, avoiding her eyes once more.

"Oh, Sherlock" she sighed a few moments later as she wiped a tear away from her cheek with the back of her hand.

He was embarrassed, and she thought it endearing. She reached for his face, cupping a hot cheek in her left palm and turned his head towards her. His eyes were flashing with anger, his lips set into a grim line. She smiled at him. Her own eyes sparkling with mirth and he found that he was no longer able to resent her as much as he wanted to.

"You should have called me" she said, stroking his cheekbone with her thumb "Silly man" She chuckled and leaned forward to press a kiss on his right cheek.

This took him off guard. In the time he'd known her, he had given her plenty of kisses on the cheek, whenever he realized he'd been overly rude or needed her to be more cooperative. But Molly had never initiated such kind of contact before. He was also surprised to realize that her action was not unwelcome on his side. Indeed, her sudden high spirits even made his eyes soften and the corners of his mouth turn up into the barest hint of a smile.

"Come on" she said, letting go of his face.

"What?" His eyebrows knit in confusion.

"Didn't you say you needed to use the loo?" She smiled, her tone teasing.

Oh. There was no point in denying her help anymore, he had embarrassed himself enough. And he felt like his bladder was about to burst any minute now. Sighing, he nodded and she tugged his left hand to help him get up and then wrapped it around her shoulders with a quiet chuckle. She seemed to be in very high spirits, indeed.

Her bathroom was small and he reassured her that he would be able to help himself to the sink after he was done. She had hesitated for a moment but deemed the task accomplishable for him and nodded before leaving the bathroom to wait outside.

He rolled his eyes at the predicament that he had gotten himself into. Molly Hooper had to help him go to the loo. He fished himself out of his boxers and thought about how long it would be before he could stop relying on her for his every action, as he emptied his bladder. His ankle should take no longer than a few days to heal enough for him to be able to step on it. His shoulder and arm, however, would require a few weeks and Lord, he needed a shower. Perhaps he could convince Molly to let him have a bath. Sighing, he pulled up his shorts and leaning on the edge of the bathtub navigated over to the sink.

Outside, Molly was leaning against the wall next to the bathroom door, engrossed in similar thoughts. The sickly sweet smell of death clung to her skin and hair and she was craving a long, hot shower. She wondered if he did too and realized it was an issue they would have to face sooner rather than later. The easiest way to go about it would be for her to get him into the tub and scrub him clean. The thought of it made her uneasy. There was the unmistakable excitement about the prospect. But so was the fear of rejection. It weighted over her whenever he was around, suppressing her self-esteem and making her over-analyze her every move. In the end it always turned out for the worse and she would end up saying the very wrong thing at the most inconvenient time.

As she stood there, though, she felt remarkably light. Whether it was due to the exhaustion or the fact that he was now dependent on her, she couldn't tell. But she felt more comfortable in her skin than she had done in years.

Having Sherlock depend on her even for mundane tasks like getting dressed and going to the bathroom felt strange, but she reveled in it. She enjoyed taking care of him and having an excuse to be close to him. Molly couldn't help but wonder how all of this would impact their relationship. Was there a chance that he could grow to want her the way she wanted him? She was reluctant to acknowledge that possibility, unwilling to give herself any false hope. She knew it was only a matter of how long it took for his injuries to heal, before he would be gone. She had no idea where he would go or how long it would be before he came back to London, but she was sure he would be back. He would lay low for a while, he would find a way to clear his name, and then he would return to the comfort of 221B where John kept up with his outlandish behavior, Lestrade gave him cases and Mrs. Hudson was not his housekeeper. And where would that leave her? Would she be able to resume the post of his mousy pathologist as he swaggered into her mortuary, flattering her to get his way? No, she didn't think so, but that was exactly what was going to happen.

Unless she somehow managed to get through to him, show him what she had to offer and make him realize just what he was throwing away. It would be a few weeks before he left, and she could either let him go or try to make him see her for what she was. He was complicated and rude and so brilliant that most people often resented him for his way of making them feel insecure about themselves. Still, she loved him, even when he ridiculed the size of her breasts, showered her in empty compliments and scorned her feelings for him. It was illogical, yet she still wanted him, and this would be her last chance to win him over.

She let out a breath, massaging her neck absent-mindedly as determination settled in her eyes. Sherlock Holmes believed he was above romantic love and longing, but she knew it was only because he had never experienced any of it before. Molly was determined to change it. And if she couldn't kindle those feelings inside him, she would at least make sure he knew what it felt like to be loved and cherished.

"Are you done yet?" She asked quietly, opening the door when she heard him close the tap.

"Yes" he said, shaking his wet hand above the sink.

She grabbed a towel from the hanger by the door and closed the distance between them, taking hold of his hand and wordlessly drying it off. He observed her as she did. Something was different about her, he noted. Her posture seemed a little straighter, her fingers sure and her strokes, albeit gentle, were deliberate.

"How are you feeling?" she finally looked up at him. No matter how many times she did it, he always found himself unsettled by the expressiveness of her eyes. She was truly an open book for him whenever she looked at him this way, allowing him to read into her emotions and feelings as easily as he did her actions. He found it puzzling, the way she still let herself be this vulnerable in front of him, even after he had numerously used her openness to cause her pain. But even stranger was the newly settled calmness and determination in her gaze.

"Better" He replied, "Although I would appreciate a shower" he sighed, what was the point in telling her this? He was well aware that he wouldn't be able to handle the task in his current state, without her assisting him and she would only get flustered and possibly struggle with an incoherent sentence or two before refusing him.

Instead, she nodded, taking him off guard once again "I thought you would"

She hung the towel back on its hanger and turned to him "Your stitches need to stay dry, but I could run you a bath, if you'd like"

Sherlock cocked his head to the side, watching her. She was nervous, he could tell by the way her fingers twisted the hem of her blouse, but she hid it well and even mustered the courage to look him in the eyes and give him a small smile.

"Please" He nodded and she let out a breath she had been holding while she waited for his response.

She went over to the toilet first and put the lid down "Sit down, I'll run the water"

He did as he was told; balancing his weight on his right foot was getting tiresome. She shrugged off her cardigan and hung it over the towel before moving to the bathtub.

They didn't speak as they waited for the bath to fill. She kept her eyes on the flowing water. He kept his eyes on her. She closed the tap when the bath was halfway full and checked the temperature of the water with her fingertips. Satisfied, she shook the droplets off her fingers and wiped her hand on the side of her jeans, before turning to face him.

"Ready" she smiled. He got up, glanced down at his shorts once, before looking back at her.

Wordlessly, she closed the distance between them and hooked her fingers in the elastic band of his underwear. She stole a glance at his face, silently asking for permission and was surprised to find his eyes challenging. He didn't expect she could go through with this, she realized.

Feeling bolder and determined to prove him wrong, she pressed her fingertips against his hipbones under his silk boxers, flattening her palms against his smooth skin and lightly brushing his pubic hair with the tips of her thumbs. His breathing stilled for a moment, before he managed to compose himself.

She didn't pause. Sliding her palms down his thighs, she tugged his shorts down to his ankles and gently maneuvered his left foot out of them. Her heart was beating violently inside her chest as she straightened back up. He was lovely. Absolutely and perfectly lovely from head to toe. She could feel the excitement settle low in her stomach and flushed, reprimanding herself. She was to help him into the bath and wash him clean. There was no point in letting her fantasies run wild.

Sherlock was uncomfortable. Not because he was ashamed of his body, or because he was standing stark naked in front of a fully clothed Molly Hooper. But because something had begun to stir inside him when he'd felt her cool fingertips slide underneath the elastic of his shorts. This was new territory for him. He had always found intimacy to be an unnecessary distraction and believed people's way of succumbing to their primal urges to be pathetic. Yet her fingers, pressing so softly and purposefully into his skin sent waves of heat through his body. His breath caught in his throat when her thumbs ghosted over the skin just above his manhood. He concentrated on the feel of her hands, as she slid them down his thighs and felt something hot starting to grow low in his stomach as he felt her hiss in a breath when her eyes settled on his cock.

Molly placed a hand on the small of his back and saw him shiver as goosebumps covered his fair skin.

"Cold?" she asked innocently.

"No" he choked out and wrapped his left arm around her shoulders, stiffly.

Her bathtub was rather small, but it allowed for him to stretch his injured leg out, without putting any pressure on it. The water reached to just below his chest. She suggested he rest his bandaged arm on the edge of the tub to keep it dry, and he complied, wincing at the pain in his shoulder as he did so.

Once he was settled, she asked if the water was alright and rolling the sleeves of her blouse above her elbows, reached to remove the shower head from its holder. They didn't speak, or make eye contact as she wet his upper body, being careful with his bandages.

The heat from the water, made the bathroom warmer, fogging the mirror. She closed the tap for the time being, putting the shower head aside and grabbed her vanilla scented body wash from the shelf above the tub. Thinking a sponge would be too harsh against his tender bruises, she squeezed the liquid into her palm instead and set the bottle on the edge of the tub before lathering his shoulders. She could feel the tension in his muscles and smiled softly at his discomfort.

"I hope you like vanilla" she said in attempt to break the silence, spreading the body wash across the planes of his back in smooth circles.

He made no answer.

She sighed and placed both her hands where his broad shoulders met his neck, pressing lightly with her fingertips in an attempt to loosen him up. He didn't respond at first, but a few moments later released a low groan, sagging slightly against her hands. She took her time massaging his back, rubbing the vanilla scented soap into his skin.

He kept silent, save for an occasional sigh or a groan whenever her apt fingers found a particularly tight knot in his back. The moan that escaped him when she started to massage the nape of his neck took them both off guard. It was her name, spoken low and guttural and left her clenching her thighs as she traced the path from his shoulders up to his hairline.

Once she was done with his back, she poured more wash into her palm and moved to the left so he could access his chest better. This new position gave him no choice but to look at her. Thin tendrils of ginger hair had escaped the hold of her ponytail and were curling around her face in the humid air of the bathroom. Her shirt was soaked in places and he could see the outline of her bra where the thin material of her blouse clung to her body. It was modest, white and pragmatic and he found that for once her lack of style didn't bother him in the slightest, because his mind had turned into mush under the influence of stress, hot water and her skillful fingers on his skin. The pounding in his head has become a dull background noise, barely noticeable through the tiredness and the waves of pleasure that rolled through his core at her ministrations.

It was through half-lidded, hazy eyes that he observed her face as she concentrated on her hands. She was panting lightly, her palms gently smoothing the scented soap across his chest. Her fingers grazed his right nipple and he felt his penis twitch under the water. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm himself down. He was getting hard and the hot, foggy air of the bathroom did nothing to clear his senses. He was too tired to function properly, yet too _stressed _to surrender to sleep.

She noticed him growing uneasy and fidgety as she ran her hands down his abdomen. She thought perhaps he was getting tired and she should hurry with the rest of it so they could get him to bed and let him rest. But as his eyes shot open when her fingers didn't stop above the water and reached down to the spot under his navel, she realized with a shock of excitement that they had an entirely different matter at hand.

Sherlock was getting excited as well. A little too excited for his liking and it was making him restless. Now would be as good time as any to put her decisions into action, she thought, and without looking at his face, slid her fingers lower, narrowly missing his manhood and tracing the juncture of his thigh, before dipping her fingers lower until they grazed the side of his balls.

"Molly" he let out in a strangled voice, clutching the side of the tub with his left hand. She looked at him questioningly. Her skin was tingling all over and she could hear the rush of blood in her ears. Stilling her fingers, she gave him her undivided attention. If he ordered her to stop, she would.

But he did no such thing. In fact he didn't speak at all, instead shutting his eyes tightly, and grasping the enameled edge of the bathtub until his knuckles turned white. Her breath caught in her throat. Tentatively, as if it was a clockwork bomb that she was at risk of setting off at any moment, she wrapped her trembling, pruned fingers around the length of him. Getting a hold of the base and stroking them all the way to the tip once.

The muscles around his nose twitched as made a small noise in the back of his throat, but he did not open his eyes. Molly took a few deep breaths to calm her shaking, and told herself that there was no going back now. She had to go through with it, and she wanted to make him feel good.

In a few strokes she had him panting. Her initial mortification had subsided, leaving her wide-eyed and unable to take her eyes off his face. He was alternating between biting and licking his lips, the noises escaping his throat positively sinful. They made her loins clench and her skin tingle with arousal. He moaned loudly as her thumb brushed the tip of his swollen head, the sound reverberating from the tiled walls.

She pleasured him for a few minutes, the sounds of splashing of water, her ragged breathing and his breathy moans mingling in the foggy air of the room. She quickened her pace when she realized he was close, and his eyes suddenly snapped open. He looked at her, eyes half-lidded and mouth hanging open, his ocean blue irises eclipsed by the dilated pupils. He looked stunning and she felt her heart contract almost painfully as she was overcome with emotion.

He was hovering on the brink of consciousness, every cell in his body screaming in either pain or pleasure. And just as the world was turning into a hazy blur, he remembered Molly. He opened his eyes, a wave of shock running through him at the sudden realization that it was actually her, the meek, mousy Molly Hooper that was making him delirious with pleasure. His eyes travelled from her delicate lips, parted and trembling with every ragged breath she took, to her small nose, glistening with a thin sheen of perspiration, finally settling on her eyes. They were black with desire and shining with devotion. He could feel the heat of her gaze on his skin. The overwhelming affection making him light-headed and rooting him to the spot. It was a sensation unlike any other. He was high, and it felt grander and more spectacular than any drug he had ever tried.

He came with a loud groan, his back arching, his eyes rolling back into his skull, and she was undone by the raw beauty of him. Heady with the idea that it was her, who had made him look like that.

She let go of him once he became completely soft in her hand, pulling the plug from the floor of the bathtub and letting the now barely lukewarm water drain out of it. She grabbed the showerhead again and ran the water, quickly washing the soap off of him. He said nothing. Keeping still, save for an occasional tremble.

She took the largest towel from the hanger next to the door and carefully dried as much of him as she could.

"Sherlock" she finally said in a hoarse voice and he flinched at the sound of it, looking up at her from the corner of his eye "time to get out" she managed a small smile and he nodded in response.

It was easier said than done, because his limbs felt like jelly and he had almost no strength left in his muscles. She dried his feet and the backs of his thighs as she sat him on the edge of the tub, before wrapping the towel around him.

Clumsily, they made their way back to her bed and almost collapsed on top of it once they reached their destination. She fluffed his pillows up and he quickly flopped on top of them, too exhausted to even keep a sitting position. The moment his head reached the pillow, he was out like a light. Sighing, she pulled the covers over him and tucked them at his sides, before curling into a fetal position next to him and slowly drifting off to sleep.


	4. Caring

**You might not believe your eyes, but this is indeed an update.**

**I've had a rubbish few weeks and my life is still in a very sorry state, so I've had trouble with summoning enough motivation to get back to writing. But at last, here's chapter four. Unfortunately, it's rather uneventful. Fortunately, the next one will be quite the opposite. **

**Thank you all for your reviews and especially _nocturnias_ who practically guilted me into having this updated. In case you are not already familiar with her stories, I suggest you run off right now and read her "Love Stories and Tournaments of Lies," it's spectacular.**

**On a different note, you might notice the absence of Molly's cat in the story. There are several reasons for that. The first one is that I only realized this about half an hour ago. Other reasons include the facts that I don't like cats, that they're irrelevant to the plot and that I didn't feel it was necessary to go back and write the cat into the story. So in case you can't simply accept the unexplained absence of the furry nuisance, assume that it died sometime after Christmas.**

**Also, if you happen to have a tumblr, my blog name is cherrybomb42. You can leave a message that you're from here and I'll make sure to follow back ^^**

**I hope you enjoy this chapter and I won't have to make you wait for ages until I post the next one.**

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><p>Sherlock woke up hours later in a deserted bedroom. The blinds on the windows were drawn open and the yellow light of the lampposts streamed through the rain-streaked windowpanes, casting dull light on the fragments of the otherwise shadowy room.<p>

His body felt boneless and heavy and it took him a moment to realize where he was and how he had gotten there. This kind of slowness was uncharacteristic for Sherlock and he found himself annoyed at the sluggishness of his brain. He blinked his eyes a few times to clear his blurry vision, concentrating on remembering. And as the drowsiness slowly seeped out of him, his mind reeled back into action. He glanced quickly around the already familiar room, noting the little changes since the last time he had inspected it. The shards of glass were gone from the floor by the dresser, perfume bottles once again arranged on top of it. And she had placed the broken picture frame back in its place. On the chair by the door, neatly folded, were his slacks and shorts. The right side of the bed was neatly made up and the novel was missing from the bedside table, on top of which a small alarm clock showed twenty minutes past seven. He had slept over twelve hours. It was no wonder that he felt completely knackered. Well, that and the fact that he had jumped off a six story building the day before.

Promptly, he went over the events of the previous day, cataloguing details and organizing the information inside his head. It had worked out as well as he could have hoped and it was in no small part because of Molly. While he had trusted her, he had had his doubts about her ability to pull this off, yet she had handled everything brilliantly.

Reassured with his mind's impeccable work, he took a moment to assess his injuries. His head wound was pulsating dully. Unpleasant, yet not as painful as it had been the night before. He was sore all over, his ribcage bruised and his left ankle still tender.

He winced, rolling over to his right side, and froze as he caught a whiff of vanilla. He had given no thought to that part of the night, subconsciously shying away from it. But that splash of scent made the images of it fill his head, and sensations flood his senses. And for a moment he felt panic, as his heart hammered in his chest, his muscles coiled and a shock of pleasure, reminiscent of that a few hours before, ran through him, making him shiver.

He had not seen it coming, and it baffled him. He had her figured out from the moment she stuttered her first greeting to him, and last night the predictable, boring Molly Hooper had thrown it all out of the window.

He lay back down, taking deep, even breaths to stop his cardiac system going haywire, his mouth parted as his wide eyes stared unseeingly at the ceiling, recalling her actions. The kiss she gave him, her flaming cheek flush against his chest as she helped him to the bathroom, the determination in her gaze as she moved towards him, her fingers against his hipbones. He gulped, shutting his eyes. He could almost feel the pressure of her fingertips, pressing into his skin and it made his thigh muscles clench and a wave of heat rush through his body.

He suddenly became aware of his nakedness and the way the pristine white sheets rubbed against his sensitive skin. He was getting aroused and it was not a good idea.

Snapping his eyes open, he willed himself into an upright position. The sudden movement made his head swim and it took a moment for the room to stop spinning around him. He swung his feet over the edge of the bed and experimentally put pressure on his injured foot. It made him wince, but the pain was bearable, he could manage walking on his own.

Standing up, he tugged the sheet off the bed and wrapped it clumsily around himself. Getting dressed felt like too much trouble. Gritting his teeth to stop himself from wincing, and pointedly ignoring his erection, he limped towards the door leading to her living room.

It was dimly lit and very quiet. The only light was coming from the muted television set, and a lamp standing next to the couch. On the couch was Molly, curled under a blanket and fast asleep. Her novel lay on the floor, where it had fallen after slipping her drowsy grasp.

He looked at the television for a moment, seeing his own face. It was the evening news telecast and they were using that abhorred picture of him wearing that stupid hat. The caption read "Suicide of a fake genius." The corners of his mouth turned slightly downwards, the shadow of a frown crossing his face, before he looked away.

Molly had her arms tucked under her chin. She had obviously showered and changed and her wavy hair was in a tangled mess around her face. She was frowning in her sleep, her right palm clenched around a fistful of the blanket.

He considered waking her up, but stopped himself at the very last moment. She looked so small and drawn and _lovely_. The word slipped into his head without him realizing. It sounded strange, wrong even, and it made his thoughts linger on it for a moment, before his mind scuttled on to the more pressing thoughts of his plans for the immediate future.

He turned the television off and settled into the armchair next to the couch, dissatisfied with its lack of firmness. He had been in too much pain to scrutinize her living area the night before, but seeing as he was rather bored at the moment and Molly didn't seem to be waking up any time soon to entertain him, he resorted to looking around.

He had never been to her house before, and much like her bedroom, her living room was surprisingly adequate. It too was cluttered with objects, sporting fabrics of at least a dozen different patterns. He wouldn't call it tasteful, yet it was homey and warm. _Just like Molly_, he thought. In a way the place even reminded him of Baker Street albeit cleaner, a lot less hazardous and much brighter in color. Her armchair cushions were a nightmare and he could not help rolling his eyes at the cheesy quote framed on the wall opposite the television, but he found that he rather liked being there.

The living room was adjoined with a tiny kitchen and a small dining table served as the barrier between the two. Unlike the rest of the house, her kitchen was tidy, and did not look like it saw a lot of use beyond an occasional omelet. All of the surfaces were cleaned spotless, much like her working area at the mortuary.

Having thoroughly inspected her apartment, his gaze settled once again on Molly, and his mind wandered back to the foggy bathroom, this time replaying every single detail he could remember inside his head. The memories were hazy and had an almost dreamlike quality to them, in that they blacked out in moments and felt confusing and exaggerated in others. Surely he should have imagined the feral gleam in her eyes and the radiance of her face in his throes of pleasure. And the pleasure, it couldn't possibly have been as intense and gratifying as he remembered.

He had never been intimate with a woman, but he had had to _take care_ of himself on a few separate occasions and essentially, Molly had done just that. Yet it had been amazing, and all of his previous experiences came up short in comparison. The stress of the day was surely a catalyst, but it had been more than that, and it made him curious.

Sherlock Holmes had an insatiable curiosity. Once he got intrigued, he had to know all of it. He had to know for certain and then... If her touching him made him feel that way, was it possible that sex could feel even better?

Annoyed by where his train of thought had brought him Sherlock shook his head, frowning. It was absurd, and he had always been right to believe sex was a distraction from his work. But he was going to be stuck in this matchbox sized apartment for a couple weeks at the very least, and it was already starting to bore him out of his mind. In his current condition any distraction would be most welcome. He would have to be careful. No matter how bored he got, he could not go into that territory. He could not use Molly like that. He knew perfectly well of her feelings for him and allowing that to happen would be leading her on towards something he would not, could not, give her.

He could not honestly claim not to believe in existence of love. Not with people like John and Molly in his life. They were the two people that cared about him the most, in different ways, but in the same measure. He and John had a co-dependence, John was his humanity and he, in turn, was the doctor's thrill. He would never willingly admit to loving John, but his actions clearly spoke for him on this matter. Molly, however, received nothing from him in return. It didn't make sense and it had taken him a long time to understand the genuiness of her affection. His final proof was her agreeing to assist him in this scheme that could possibly ruin her entire career. (Not that he would allow for such a thing to happen) This newly acquired knowledge was humbling and came with a new kind of respect for her. But while he certainly appreciated her, he could not care for her in any way that would match her love for him. She was his pathologist, she counted, and he could not compromise their relationship just to satisfy his curiosity.

Molly woke up an hour later, with bright red finger imprints on her left cheek. She rolled onto her back and stretched, wincing a little and let out a small cry when she finally saw Sherlock.

"Sherlock" she breathed, sitting up sharply and swinging her legs off the couch. And then her forehead creased into a frown "You're not supposed to be up and walking around"

"I was bored" he shrugged.

"Did you find watching me sleep extremely entertaining?" she asked irritated.

The corners of his mouth turned upwards because for once she hadn't stuttered or put her head down, she had talked back.

"You make the most peculiar sounds in your sleep" he told her and saw her cheeks flame red as she got up from the couch.

She busied herself folding the blanket and draping it over the arm of the couch before turning to look at him again.

"How are you feeling?" She was watching him closely now and he shrugged again.

"Better"

She sighed, rolling her eyes a little and moved to kneel in front of him to inspect his ankle briefly. The swelling had gone down considerably.

He watched her face as a multitude of expressions went fleeting on her features, from concentration as she assessed the state of his injury to slight confusion as she noticed the sheet and then finally a cocktail of mortification, disbelief and horror as the events of last night finally caught up with her.

She blushed a shade of red so deep, it made the redness of the sleep marks on her cheek blend in with the color, but said nothing, hastily standing up and avoiding his eyes.

"You must be starving" she said in a strained voice.

"No I'm-"

"Yes, I'll go put the kettle on" she cut him off and all but ran to the kitchen.

For the next twenty minutes she busied herself with making tea and sandwiches.

"Would you like your tea white or black?" She asked him, her voice steadier now.

"Black" he answered and then added "two sugars"

"I know" she mumbled under her breath and placing the steaming cups on the table went over to retrieve a packet of biscuits from the cupboard above the stove.

She shook the biscuits into a small bowl and placed it on the table, before wiping her palms on the back of her leggings and padding over to where he sat.

"Come on" she said, placing a hand on his shoulder, hesitating to ask if he needed help.

He winced getting to his feet and her arms instinctively reached to get a hold of him.

"I can handle it, Molly" he said and she reluctantly retrieved her hands, but still hovered behind him just in case, until they reached the table.

They settled at the table and ate in silence for a while. Despite his interrupted attempt to insist he wasn't hungry, Sherlock quickly ate the sandwich she forced into his hand and was already halfway through the second one before she even finished hers.

"John called" she said in a small voice, once she filled their cups with more tea and reached for a biscuit.

He made no reply, but she could see by the sudden tenseness in his posture that she had his full attention.

"It's tomorrow. Your... funeral." She said quietly, cradling her cup in her palms and not tearing her eyes from his face.

The muscles around his nose twitched momentarily and he reached for his cup, bringing it to his lips and making a small sip, his eyes trained on the opposite wall. She sighed.

"You don't have to do that"

"Do what?" he looked at her, raising her eyebrows slightly.

"Pretend you don't care"

He opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out of it. She set her cup on the table and reached across it, grabbing his hand lacing her bony fingers through his.

She couldn't think of anything of value to tell him and instead she squeezed his fingers and gave him a smile that she hoped would convey all of the encouragement she was trying to give him.

"Are you finished?" she asked, still holding his hand. He nodded, his eyes falling to their interlaced fingers. She blushed and retrieved her hand, grabbing his cup and standing up to put the dishes into the sink.

"Let's get you into bed then" she said and added "I'll bring you my laptop to keep you entertained" when he looked like he was about to protest. She couldn't help but smile at the sight of him, sitting at her tiny dining table, wrapped up in her bed sheet. The mere idea of it was absurd, yet there he was.

He got up and she immediately moved to his side, wrapping her arm around his waist and hooking his over her shoulders, before he could protest. Admittedly, her assistance was quite a relief, since his body already felt drained and the back of his head had started to drum dully.

"What time?" he asked when they made it to the bed. She looked confused for a moment, before catching on.

"Ten thirty" she tugged faintly at the sheet "I washed your clothes, do you want to put them on?"

He nodded. Having one more layer preventing him from venturing into the unknown waters would be good and walking around with a sheet and without a full control of his limbs was also proving to be troublesome.

She retrieved his shorts and wordlessly helped him loop his feet through the holes, dragging them up to his knees before pulling him to his feet and tugging the sheet off. She didn't dare look at him and hastily pulled the shorts up his hips, stepping away from him as soon as she did.

She fluffed the pillows up and straightened the sheets before taking a breath and turning to look at him.

"Hop in" she smiled and cringed internally at her poor choice of words. Sherlock looked at her strangely, but obliged.

"I'll go get the laptop" she said and padded back into the living room.

It took her longer than necessary to return and Sherlock rolled his eyes, figuring she had spent the time hiding away the files she didn't want him to see, which was a useless task, really.

After dropping the laptop off with him, Molly went back to do the dishes and clear the table, and when she returned Sherlock was lying flat on his back staring at the ceiling, the laptop forgotten on the floor beside the bed.

"Are you alright?" she asked tentatively and when he didn't reply just walked around the bed and quietly lay down beside him, careful not to touch him.

They lay side by side in silence for a long while and Molly was starting to drift off to sleep when Sherlock spoke.

"Tell me something"

"What?" She asked sleepily.

"Anything. Tell me about your mother, or college, or why your brother and father didn't get along"

For anyone else, these questions would seem too private to be asked in such a nonchalant fashion, but he was Sherlock and she was Molly and she would always answer if he asked.

Yet Molly didn't answer at once. She had never known much about her mother. She had died when Molly had been a little over a year old and all she remembered of her was from photographs and the few stories that her brother had told her after she'd pestered him long enough. Her father had always refused to speak of his wife. And it used to upset her as a child, but as she got older Molly realized it was only because remembering her caused him too much pain, so she had quit asking.

It was strange that Sherlock had even known that there had been some kind of animosity between her father and Caleb, but the fact that he always knew everything had long since stopped to astound her. Nevertheless, it wasn't a story that she was very keen on telling, so she decided to go with the easiest option of the three and tell him about college.

Rolling onto her side, she propped her head up on her elbow and started at the very beginning, telling him everything from the little things like the horrible cafeteria food and the ugly potted plant at the end of the hallway in her dormitory, to her favorite course projects and embarrassing social outings on which her friends insisted every other Friday. And to her surprise he gave her his undivided attention, rolling his eyes at some things, frowning at others and actually cracking a smile once or twice.

It was well past midnight when she was almost done with her stories and a small silence had fallen between them. It was peaceful and comfortable and she lay on her side, head resting on her folded arm and eyes not wavering from his face. With eyes directed at the ceiling, he looked sad and suddenly she desperately wanted to make him laugh.

"I haven't told you the most embarrassing one yet" she said and absentmindedly reached to lightly stroke the fingers of his injured hand that was resting on his chest. He raised an eyebrow at her.

And she proceeded to tell him the story of how she got locked out of her dorm room, dripping wet, in nothing but a tiny towel that barely covered half of her body and a toothbrush in hand. She was barely containing her giggles as she recalled the mortification of having to stomp across half the building to get to the front desk and hiding behind the large potted palm tree in the lobby while the guard was looking for the spare key to her room.

It seemed like even Sherlock couldn't deny the hilarity of the story and by the end of it they were both shaking with laughter and molly reached up to wipe a tear from her eye.

Once they calmed down, Molly lay on her back for a moment, hands folded on her stomach, smiling at the ceiling. From the corner of her eye she could see Sherlock looking at her and she turned her head towards him giving him a bright smile.

"We should go to sleep." She said, sighing and rolled off the bed and to her feet. She was sick of sleeping in her clothes.

She went over to her closet and grabbed the pair of her prettiest nightwear. Usually, she slept in one of her brother's old t-shirts, but that was not an option when Sherlock Holmes was lying in her bed.

She got changed, brushed her teeth and hair and padded back to the bed, rubbing moisturizing cream into her hands.

"Do you need anything?" she asked him, standing at the foot of the bed and he rolled his eyes.

"Molly, I don't need you to babysit me"

"I'm not babysitting, I'm taking care of you" she shrugged, a small smile tugging at her lips.

"I don't need to be taken care of" he repeated stubbornly as she climbed under the covers.

"Just because you're not used to it, doesn't mean you don't need it" she said and leaned over to plant a small kiss on his temple "Goodnight, Sherlock."

He looked at her, but didn't say anything, so she rolled to her side, facing away from him and closed her eyes feeling her stomach tie into knots as she thought of the following day. Tomorrow, John Watson would attend his best friend's funeral, and she would have to look the grieving man in the eyes, knowing exactly what could put him out of his misery but saying nothing.


	5. Feeling

**Things have certainly been looking up for me, but I've had very very little time for writing this story. And this is rather a fragment of what was supposed to be Chapter 5, but a certain someone told me that it would still be better than waiting until I get the chapter done, which can be a few weeks from now, since my finals are next week and then I'll have to re-locate back home. **

**If you want to wait and read it when I finally type up all of the goodness that I have in mind, it's entirely up to you. But I thought I'd post this anyway.**

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><p>Sherlock woke up alone in the bed. He had spent most of the night awake, his mind unwillingly wandering to 221B Baker Street and John. He felt like a shadow. Broken and locked away from the world in this bizarre dream of Molly Hooper's. This might as well be a fantasy of hers, he thought darkly. Him weak and hurt and completely at her disposal. Almost as soon as the thought passed through his mind he felt guilty. She didn't deserve this bitterness, yet his sullen mood took over and he spent the next few hours glaring at the ceiling and reveling in unkind thoughts.<p>

In the bathroom, the shower stopped running, and a few moments later he heard the loud noise of a blow drier. He looked over to the alarm clock by Molly's side of the bed. It was ten past nine, she would be leaving soon. A black dress was laid over the back of a chair by her dresser and a pair of matching small heels sat on the floor beside it. Mourning colors. Momentarily, he wondered if the rest of his friends would be wearing black too, but quickly dismissed the thought. It didn't matter in the slightest.

A few minutes later, Molly emerged from the bathroom, her face flushed from the heat. She faltered a little as if shocked by the sight of him in her bed, but recovered quickly and gave him a bright smile "You're awake."

He replied with a murmured "good morning," tiredly wondering how her smiles always managed to be so genuine. He recognized her affection for him, but he couldn't even begin to understand it. She must have deemed his unenthusiastic welcome satisfactory, because she nodded once and made a beeline to her dresser, snatching up a hair band and sweeping her freshly dried hair off her shoulders and into a low ponytail.

"How are you feeling?" she asked, turning to face him. It had become a routine question, but her concern for his well-being was always so tangible that he couldn't even find it in himself to be annoyed.

"Better" he gave her the routine answer. She rolled her eyes and walked over to the foot of the bed, tugging the sheet off his feet and bending over to examine his ankle. Her hands felt hot, gently prodding and ghosting over the cool, tender skin. She looked satisfied with its condition, but her fingers lingered.

"Are you cold?" she asked, her brow furrowed as she gently encased his toes in her palms to warm them up.

He was looking at her strangely, a part of him annoyed at her never-ending string of questions, and her determination to find excuses to touch him. Yet another part relished the warmth of her skin against his body. It made him feel less like a ghost. It was proof that he still existed. The pain and her touch were the only two things tying him down to his sanity, and her nimble fingers felt far more pleasant than the dull ache in his joints.

He gave her a nod. He wasn't truly cold, but her light grip on him felt solid, grounding him. She started moving her hands to create a bit of friction. Sliding her thumbs down the sole of his foot and rubbing warmth into his toes. Gently, she set his left foot back onto the bed and swiftly moved onto the right, her touch firmer, no longer cautious about hurting him.

He was breathing deeply, his eyes settled on her face as she caressed his skin, an absentminded smile tugging at her lips. It felt pleasant. He felt his muscles relax somewhat and a warmth that had nothing to do with friction, start to spread across his chest and to the tips of his ears. For a moment, he imagined her hands elsewhere. Sliding up his calves, ghosting over his thighs...

He jerked his food out of her hold and she let out a small gasp, her face shading scarlet, as she hastily scrambled to her feet. Sherlock's face flushed as well, although it was no match for Molly's crimson cheeks. She mumbled something about tea and quickly dashed out of the room, leaving him flushed and frustrated.

She reappeared a few minutes later with a glass of water and a pill in her left palm. She set both on the bedside table, without meeting his gaze and grabbed her dress before disappearing into the bathroom.

Sherlock sighed and sat up, carefully swinging his feet over the edge of the bed. He swallowed the pill and gulped down half of the water. Setting the glass back onto the table, he straightened his spine and tried stretching a little, only to curl back into a slouched position, wincing.

When Molly emerged from the bathroom a second time, her hair was neatly twisted and tucked away into a low side bun. The dress was barely worn, he noted, but not new. It was modest, but form fitting, with three-quarter sleeves, a square neckline, and reaching just above her knees, clinging to her slight frame. On the back of the dress, from the point where her shoulders met and down her spine ran a zipper which was currently done only halfway – as far as her hands were able to reach.

She walked over to her dresser and pretended to get busy with putting on earrings and pulling her make-up out of the bag. Through the mirror, she watched him as he carefully climbed to his feet and made a first tentative step, wincing, but not losing his balance. Her shoulders tensed. She wanted to rush to his side and put her arms around him, forcing some of his weight onto her, instead of his leg, but she forced herself to stay still. He would ask for help if he really needed it, and she could tell that his patience with her attention to him was already thinning.

She held her breath, counting his steps as he limped his way to the bathroom, and let out a deep sigh once the door closed shut behind him. Before, she could distance herself from him, calm her heartbeat and shake off the thoughts of him, if only for a while. Now, however, she felt bloated with feelings and fears, her heart swollen in her chest. His every wince drove her insane with the need to relieve his pain, his every sigh made her desperate to seek ways to entertain him. Now, he was all consuming. He was in her shower, and in her bed, at her kitchen table and in the plump armchair in front of her telly. He was in everything she was, and it terrified her.

Angrily, she swept all of the make-up back inside the bag and hastily pulled her mother's earrings out of her ears, putting them away and shutting the drawer with the force that made the adjoining mirror wobble from the impact, clinking against the crystal perfume bottles. She was going to the funeral of the man she loved. It was no occasion for her favorite pearl earrings. She put on her shoes and grabbed her purse, throwing her keys, phone and wallet inside it.

Molly busied herself with straightening the bed and rummaging through her closet for any clothes that her brother might have left behind after his last visit. She found a ratty pair of sweatpants and a dark blue V-neck shirt. They would be a loose fit, since her brother was a lot bulkier than Sherlock, but they would do. She shut the closet doors just as Sherlock came out of the bathroom.

"These are my brother's, if you want to put something on" She said quietly, without looking at him and laid the clothes on the bed, moving to grab her purse. She was running late. "There's some breakfast in the kitchen, the mugs are in the cupboard above the sink and the kettle's on the stove."

He looked impassive, standing there in nothing but underwear, balancing his weight on his right foot. She let out a small sigh and made herself look at his face.

"Please eat something" she murmured, before dropping her eyes and turning to leave.

His expression softened, the muscles around his eyes relaxing as he felt a tugging in his chest. Damn her. Why couldn't she be daft, condescending, selfish, obnoxious, anything that would justify his coldness and make him hate her, instead of hating himself for the flashes of hurt or disappointment in her eyes.

As it was, he felt the inexplicable need to reach out for her. Right now, she was his only link to reality and he found that her emotions, whatever they were, always found a way to crawl inside him, too. Whenever she gave him one of her winning smiles, the corners of his lips crept upwards on their own accord. When she looked at him with her wide eyes brimming with affection, he could feel the warmth of it seep through his skin and rest in his bones, lacing through his ribcage and tying his stomach into knots. And right now, with her shoulders hunched and her eyes downcast as she walked away from him, she made his throat tight and his chest heavy.

"Molly" he called.

She stopped at once and turned her head, looking at him expectantly with one hand resting on the doorframe. But he didn't say anything, biting his lip and limping his way towards her, instead.

"What is it?" she asked, half alarmed as she rushed towards him, her eyes running over his injuries.

"Your dress" he said, his eyes lighting up in amusement as hers clouded with confusion.

"What?"

"It's half open" he said patiently and gestured for her to turn around with his hand, but she only blushed, gluing her eyes to his chest.

He reached out for her then, placing his left hand on the right side of her waist and urging her to turn around. She did, and let out a small gasp, her breath catching in her throat, as his cool fingertips came in contact with her spine and ghosted along it, up to her shoulders. His fingers traced the curve of her back once, before resting on the small of her back. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck, making goosebumps run down her skin and the little hairs stand to attention.

"Thank you" she breathed out and all but dashed out of the room, hastily grabbing her coat off the hanger by the door and darting out of the apartment.


	6. Losing

**I'm not dead. ****Here's the next chapter.**

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><p>The funeral of Sherlock Holmes was a doleful affair. Despite the hold-up, Molly arrived at the cemetery almost on time. With tentative steps she slowly approached the party of five, the heels of her shoes sinking into the soft, perpetually wet soil. John, Mrs. Hudson, Greg, and Mycroft all stood a small distance from the headstone with Sherlock's name on it. In front of the stone, a small pile of soil lay next to a neatly dug hole, where the ashes of the man that everyone but Molly knew to be dead would be set to rest. The fifth person was a middle-aged man. Dressed in scruffy jeans and a leather jacket two sizes too large, he was holding a small shovel. His hands were rough and dark, dirt gathered underneath his jagged fingernails. His posture relaxed, and his gaze soft and ancient as it swept over her.<p>

Detective Inspector Lestrade was the first to acknowledge her presence, murmuring a quiet hello and patting her shoulder affectionately. She nodded her greeting to him and approached Mrs. Hudson, who was clutching John's left arm and sobbing quietly into a lacy handkerchief.

"Molly, dear" she whimpered and untangled herself from John, who looked relieved, before wrapping Molly up in a smothering embrace.

"I'm so sorry, dear, I know how you felt about him" she sniffed, giving Molly a clumsy motherly pat on the cheek and Molly could already feel the sting of tears forming behind her eyelids. She didn't say anything, just hugged the elder woman back.

"John" said Lestrade and Molly looked up in time to see John nod and pass a small urn with the ashes over to the man with the shovel.

Molly did not let go of Mrs. Hudson, as the man lowered the urn into the ground and then proceeded to cover it with dirt one shovel at a time.

No one said anything. No parting words or anecdotes were shared. No one was ready to let him go yet.

While the gravedigger finished up his job, Molly didn't take her eyes off John, her insides growing cold as the doctor's hunched shoulders straightened into a well-practiced military stance.

They stood in silence for a long moment, the ashes of the world's only consulting detective now three feet underground, until Mycroft broke the spell, thanking the man for his services and bidding them all goodbye. Lestrade soon followed, offering his arm to Mrs. Hudson and patting John's shoulder.

With their footsteps quickly fading away behind her, Molly stood rigid a small distance away from John. The lines of his face were arranged into a frown and Molly thought he looked so much wearier since the last time she'd seen him. A tremor ran down his spine and he straightened again, clenching his fists, before nodding sharply at the tombstone as if in farewell and turned around on the spot.

Catching a sight of her he faltered, and she realized he must have thought she'd left with the others. She clenched her hands tightly together, unable to come up with anything to say to him and he seemed to understand her struggle because he nodded at her, his eyes softening, before leaving in the same direction that Mrs. Hudson and Greg had gone a few minutes before.

She swallowed the bitter taste of bile in her throat as she watched him go, an occasional limp finding its way into his step. He was breaking, one step at a time, and she felt sick and guilt-ridden, because she could have been in his shoes, and because she wasn't.

Turning her gaze to the grave, her eyes landed on Sherlock's name, carved out in golden lettering on the black canvas. But he wasn't there. He was safe under the warmth of her bed sheets, alive and reasonably healthy – not a pile of dust underneath her feet.

Of all the terrible things he'd made her feel, this was by far the worst. Alone and guilty and relieved and terrified – the cocktail of emotions made her nauseous.

Swiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands, she scrambled away from the grave, clumsy in her heels and distress and anxious to be home.

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><p>She found him in the bed, sheets tangled about his midsection, as he stared at the ceiling. Closing the door behind her, Molly kicked off her shoes and walked to her side of the bed. He didn't so much as glance at her. Wordlessly, she crawled under the sheets and shuffled closer to him, until her forehead was pressed softly against his bandaged shoulder.<p>

They lay in silence for a long moment, and then almost incoherently, lips grazing against his shoulder, she murmured "I'm glad you're alive." And for an instant, as his heart clenched with an alien sort of pleasure, he thought that he was glad as well.

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><p>She took a week off work. It was common knowledge at St. Bart's that Molly Hooper had been <em>his<em> pathologist. So when she called in early on Monday morning and said she would like to take a week of her vacation time early, no questions had been asked.

She ended up thinking it had been a useless thing to do. They spent most of their time not speaking, save for Molly's attempts to coax him into eating (always in vain) and an occasional exchange of words as she tended to his bandages. Despite her protests, Sherlock took up limping around her flat, clad in her brother's sweatpants, to the point when he got dizzy and crashed onto the nearest soft surface, gasping with pain, only to catch his breath before resuming his pointless marathon. He started to shy away from her touch as his replies to her grew clipped.

She put up with all of it for a while, thinking that surely, his fancies would soon pass, but when Wednesday evening found him dragging a pillow and a blanket over to the sitting room and folding his lanky form awkwardly, and she was certain painfully, onto her small sofa, she decided she'd had enough.

"What's the matter, Sherlock?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking, heart hammering in her throat the way it always did whenever she mustered up enough courage to speak up to him.

He only spared her a glance, before closing his eyes, his face a blank mask. She huffed quietly, bringing one arm to cradle her temple, as the other pressed across her stomach.

"Talk to me" she insisted, her voice strained. He did not.

She felt anger swivel inside her, making her frame tremble and head feel light. It was as if she was invisible to him, and up until a few days ago she could have dealt with it, but not anymore. Not since he'd told her she counted, since he'd asked of her so much more than he was entitled to. She could not resign to invisibility again after she'd finally made him see her.

Her bony fingers closed around the neck of a half empty wine bottle resting on the coffee table and a moment later it went flying over the couch, crashing loudly against the framed "Love with all you have" poster.

The frame sacked, glass cracked into pieces, but remained on the wall as the red wine trickled down from it like blood.

Sherlock shot up on the couch, eyes wide in their bewilderment as he looked first at the wall and then at her. She looked at him expectantly and he averted his eyes, swinging his feet off the couch into a proper sitting position.

"What do you want me to day?" he sighed finally, looking up.

"What's happening to you?"

"_Nothing_ is happening to me" he barked

"That's not a reason to treat me like a bloody leper" she yelled, collapsing into the plush armchair.

He scowled, eyes falling to the floor shamefully "Caring is not an advantage"

"It saved John's life" she returned and his head suddenly shot up, agitated.

"John's life wouldn't be in need of saving in the first placef it handn't been for it!" he bit out, his face dark.

"It saved yours" she croaked, suddenly feeling very tired.

He opened his mouth to protest, but nothing came out of it. After a moment of silence Molly sighed in defeat and stood up.

He watched her walk over to the kitchen out of the corner of his eye and listened to her small grunts and groans as she mopped up the mess behind him and gathered the shards of glass.

She didn't spare him a look during either of her six trips to the kitchen, and once the last of the wine bottle was dumped into the trash, she headed straight to her bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Sherlock leaned back against the couch, wincing. With his pointless strolls around the flat and his refusal to drink even the pain medication she offered him, every inch of his battered body was screaming in pain. For the past few days, he'd subjected himself to gruesome exercise in a vain attempt to take his mind off Molly Hooper. He could see her disposition changing as she got more familiar with him and it scared Sherlock how accepting she was proving to be of his quirks and whims. For the most part of their relationship he had her pegged to be merely infatuated with an idea of him she had created for herself, but now his theories of her were swiftly crumbling, leaving him unable to comprehend how well she actually knew him, and how little it swayed her affection for him.

Circumvented, by Molly Hooper of all people, and humbled by his recent realizations, he felt foolish. He felt the urge to flee, to run away and never face her knowing look again. Yet he pushed that thought, however tempting, away, even though the only alternative to it was guilt. He owed her that.

Taking a careful breath, he scrambled to his feet and grabbed his pillow, before limping over to the bedroom door.

She lay curled on her side of the bed, facing away from him, and he closed the door quietly before putting the pillow down and carefully climbing into the bed, sighing as he stretched his legs and laid his head comfortably against the pillow.

Her breathing was even, but he knew she was awake by the tension in her shoulders. In an attempt at apology, he reached for her exposed elbow with his left hand and carefully squeezed it, caressing her skin with his thumb. He heard her sigh, but she didn't respond, so he retrieved his hand, relaxing back against the mattress.

For a few moments they were still, and then he felt the mattress dip under her weight as she rolled over to face him. He opened his eyes to find her looking at him tiredly. Stifling a yawn, she fixed her pillow, trying to get comfortable and then lifted her blanket to drape it over him, apology accepted, before settling with her head close to, but not quite touching his shoulder.

Sighing in relief, he shuffled closer to her, pressing his lips against the top of her head, before closing his eyes.

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><p><strong>Lo and behold, it's chapter six. I know just how underwhelming it is, so yes, you may punch me in the face if it'll make you feel better.<strong>


	7. Breaking

**I can't believe I finished this chapter. I literally had to squeeze each sentence out of my head and it's so frustrating that I have given up on it and come back to it a thousand times over. **

**Thank you to everyone who have stuck around despite my inexcusable updating patterns and especially those who have written to me asking to continue long after I thought nobody remembered the story. The guilt of leaving you hanging had motivated me better than anything lately, so thank you.**

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><p>Sherlock woke from his slumber to the feeling of Molly's fingers ghosting through his unkempt hair. She had taken out his stitches a week earlier and egged by his complaints that he was starting to smell worse than some of his homeless network, Molly had agreed to give him a full bath. He had not protested, despite the fact that having his shoulder and ankle mostly healed, he could well be able to bathe on his own. Sherlock had seemingly given up the self-antagonizing and as a result came to terms with the conclusion that keeping Molly in good spirits was essential for his comfort.<p>

And so, for the past several weeks, Sherlock had willed his brain to stray from thoughts about consequence. All of which had brought him here, lying on Molly's couch with his head in her lap and her fingers tracing the lines of his face. He couldn't help the sigh that escaped his lungs as her warm palm cradled the side of his face.

"You need to shave" she yawned and he finally opened his eyes, grunting in agreement.

They had settled into a rhythm of domesticity that once would have driven him out of his mind. But now Sherlock Holmes was dead and in the never ending monotony of Molly's one-bedroom apartment, he felt oddly detached from all that he used to be.

Now that he no longer had his work to pacify his mind, he had put all of his energy into researching what he could about Moriarty's network. Yet there was only so much he could find out, being cooped up in Molly's living room with her laptop as his only aid and he soon found himself recycling the same information, with no new leads to go on. So for weeks after, Molly had become his sole means of entertainment. His days were spent attempting to provoke all kinds of reactions from her, afternoons busy with scrutinizing every detail of her apartment and staring contests with her bedroom ceiling until she got home from work.

She would bring take-out from one of the few restaurants down the street from Bart's and an occasional item Sherlock had asked her to pick up at the shops, and they would settle on her couch, surrounded by carton boxes as they played a game of "guess the cause of death."

Afterwards, Molly would excuse herself to shower, or take a bath if the day had been particularly stressful, while Sherlock sprawled across the couch waiting for her to return. Unwillingly, he would find himself wondering about which end of the couch she would choose to seat on, that evening. It inevitably reflected how she felt about him that day. If she lifted his feet to pile them in her lap – she was feeling reserved and distant. Motioning for him to sit up, so she could settle with his head on her thighs meant that she was feeling confident and a little bold. Those were his favourite days. And then there were the evenings few and far between, when she would bypass the couch altogether and curl up on her sorry excuse for an armchair, focusing on the television until the clock struck eleven, and she excused herself to go to bed. Those nights would find him sneaking his good arm around her waist and burying his nose in her hair, murmuring an apology.

Touching her – and having her touch him – was rapidly becoming a new addiction. As a former junkie, he knew the signs of it at once, yet he wasn't about to give up the only thing that helped him keep a hold of his sanity. So he sought her out: tagging at her heels as she breezed around the flat doing chores each Saturday, looping his foot around hers under the kitchen table during breakfast, pressing close to her under the covers once they had crawled into the bed for the night.

He had never needed that before - the reassurance of another person's warmth, an anchor to solidity.

Molly, on her part, embraced his new whims as best as she could. She realized, on some level, that his new-found attraction to her had less to do with her than with him. She knew his mind (as well as anyone could claim to know the genius), was familiar with the way it worked, constantly craving stimulation. And in his current state of near complete stagnation, she was his only stimuli, so she obliged. Nursing him to health physically would only turn out pointless if he lost his mind in the meantime.

She knew this well, and still a hopeful, selfish part of her clung to the idea that if only she could burrow herself deep enough in him, he would let her stay. That if she traced the contours of his frame with her fingertips, drenching him in her scent and warmth, he would never be able to scrub her out of his skin. She basked him in her love and greedily craved for him to love her too.

"It's getting late" she said, knowing he would understand it as her excuse to go to bed.

She waited for him to sit up, so she could get to her feet, but he only glanced at her through his lashes, before setting his gaze on the muted television.

"It's Friday" he protested a little childishly and the corners of her lips lifted in a fond smile. It didn't matter why he wanted her, only that he did.

She cupped his chin, tilting his head so he would look at her "Let's go to bed, Sherlock"

And it must have been the perfect thing to say, because she heard his breath catch for a moment, before ghosting over her fingertips, and then he nodded and lifted himself off her lap.

She turned off the TV and grabbed the tea mug sitting on the coffee table, padding over to the kitchen and stifling a yawn against her sleeve. Opening the tap, she rinsed the mug, scrubbing at the brown tea line near the bottom.

She heard him shuffle behind her and glanced over her shoulder to see that he was hovering at the dinner table a few feet away from her.

"Do you want anything before bed?" she asked, placing the mug on the dryer and shaking the water from her hands.

"You"

She froze for a moment, hands braced against the edge of the sink, and then spun around, a laugh bubbling in her chest and a halfway witty retort about to roll off her tongue. But he was right there, standing at an arm's length from her, looking disheveled and wild and her laughter died in her throat, the retort forgotten as her lips parted with a quiet gasp and her fingers clenched into wet fists at her sides, nails digging into the flesh of her palms.

He looked ready to pounce, but his good arm stretched cautiously, before finding home against her neck, cool fingers slipping behind her flaming ears and his thumb settling in the dip below her lips.

She let out a noise that could have been a whimper and then his lips were on hers, firm and soft and every positive adjective she could think of before they faded away from her into the kaleidoscope of shock and want and toe-curling pleasure.

Her damp hands clutched against his hips, digging into his skin through the soft material of his sweatpants and he opened his mouth, tongue ghosting against her lips and his three-day stubble prickling her flushed skin, coaxing moans out of her.

He pulled away for a moment, drawing a breath against her mouth and she scrambled forward, latching her lips to his like he was her life support. She felt him shiver almost violently, hips jerking against her as he kissed her with fervor, sliding his tongue into her mouth, his movements sloppier and more frenzied by the minute.

Her hands ran north, palms sliding beneath the ratty tee shirt, hiking it up and flattening against the broad planes of his back. Sherlock moaned, the broken sound of it reverberating through his chest and vibrating against her mouth.

She broke away to suck in a gulp of air and he let out a whimper, latching his lips to the spot under her ear, hips pinning her to the sink. Molly's hand cupped the nape of his neck, fingers twisting in his overgrown hair as his arm snaked under her knee, hitching it around his waist.

His lips found hers again in a hard kiss, tongues tangling, hands gripping, hips thrusting against each other. And she felt him start to slip away, his shoulders frozen with tension, hand gripping her tight enough to bruise, knees shaking under the weight of his frenzied desire.

Molly broke the kiss. Her hands found his face, gripping firmly and forcing him to keep still, even as he struggled to put his mouth back on her.

"Sherlock. Sherlock, stop" she gasped breathlessly, trying to catch his eyes and he suddenly stilled, hand freezing on her waist momentarily, before jerking away.

"I'm sorry" he breathed, casting his eyes away and stepping away instinctively.

"No" rasped, voice suddenly thick with emotion, stepping forward to close the distance between them again "No, come here"

She hugged him, one hand wrapping around the nape of his neck, the other looping under his left arm, squeezing him tightly. He remained stiff for a moment, and then it was as if something inside him snapped and suddenly he was heavy in her arms, hugging her back.

"Molly" he sighed into her hair and she squeezed her eyes shut, a few stray tears soaking into his shirt.

For a mad instant she thought she broke him and then her fingers brushed against the tiny scabs on his scalp where stitches used to be and she remembered that he had broken himself.


End file.
